The museum now houses 300,000 objects, including landmark works by such paramount American artists as Winslow Homer, Georgia OKeeffe, and John Singer Sargent.

FORT WORTH, TX.- Museum Director Ron Tyler announces that the Amon Carter Museum has modified its name: the longtime institution is now known as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

The museum was established in 1961 to house Amon G. Carters collection of paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, the two greatest artists of the American West, Tyler says. But from the beginning, the Amon G. Carter Foundation and the Carter family intended the museum to be a vibrant and evolving institution.

Mitchell A. Wilder, the museums first director, believed the history of American art could be interpreted as the history of artists working on successive frontiers, both geographic and artistic. The Carters mission would no longer be limited to western art, he said in an interview in 1967. Indeed, to understand the West, he said, the East must also be studied. In this new spirit of collecting, the museum acquired that year the modern masterpiece Blips and Ifs (1964) by Stuart Davis, and the museums holdings have continued to grow since then in fascinating ways.

The museum now houses 300,000 objects, including landmark works by such paramount American artists as Winslow Homer, Georgia OKeeffe, and John Singer Sargent. The museum also houses one of the largest collections of American photography in the country.

Our new name doesnt signify a shift in mission, but rather a clarification of what weve offered since the mid-1960s, Tyler says. The name change is a way to better communicate what visitors can expect when they come to the museum.

With the museums 50th anniversary approaching in January 2011, Tyler says it was the right time for a name change.

As we mark our 50th anniversary, we want to remind the public of all we have to offer, Tyler says. We have fantastic exhibitions and programs planned for the year, including a community celebration in August 2011. If youve never visited us before, we invite you to visit. And if you have, we hope to see you often in 2011. It will be a great year of American art.